CHAPTER XI
THE MIDNIGHT ALARM
"Whew! What a lot of 'em!"
"Bless my fish line! It's a big school!"
"Look how they turn over and over, and leap from the water."
"By golly, dere is suttinly some fish dere!"
These were the exclamations made by our four friends a few days later. as they leaned over the rail of the Maderia and watched a big school of porpoises gamboling about in the warm waters of the gulf stream. It was the second porpoise school the ship had come up with on the voyage, and this was a much larger one than the first, so that the passengers crowded up to see the somewhat novel sight.
"If they were only good eating now, we might try for a few," observed Ned.
"Some folks eat them, but they're too oily for me," observed a gentleman who had struck up an acquaintance with the boys and Mr. Damon. "Their skin makes excellent shoe laces though, and their oil is used for delicate machinery—espe-
89
